ALAN JAY LERNER ~ August 31, 1918 ~ June 14, 1986

Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American Broadway lyricist and librettist. Together with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre. Lerner wrote the lyrics for some of the theatre's most famous songs. He won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors. Born in New York City, he was the son of Joseph Jay Lerner, the brother of the owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. The founder and owner of Lerner Stores was Samuel Alexander Lerner. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Harvard, where he befriended classmate John F. Kennedy. Like Cole Porter at Yale and Richard Rodgers at Columbia, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual Harvard Hasty Pudding musicals.

Following graduation, Lerner wrote scripts for radio, including Your Hit Parade, until he was introduced to a down-on-his-heels Austrian composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a lyricist, in 1942. Their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for What's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring. One of Broadway's most successful partnerships had been established.

Their first hit was Brigadoon (1947), a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by Robert Lewis. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful Gold Rush story Paint Your Wagon.

Lerner poured his excess energy into collaborations with Kurt Weill on the stage musical Love Life (1948) and Burton Lane on the movie musical Royal Wedding (1951). In that same year Lerner also wrote the Oscar-winning original screenplay for An American in Paris, produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli. This was the same team who would later join with Lerner and Loewe to create Gigi.

In 1956, Lerner and Loewe unveiled My Fair Lady. Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion retained his social commentary and added unusually appropriate songs for the characters of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, played originally by Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. It was hugely popular and set box-office records in New York and London. When brought to the screen in 1964, the movie version would win eight Oscars.

Lerner and Loewe's run of success continued with their next project, a film adaptation of stories from Colette, the Academy Award winning film musical Gigi, starring Leslie Caron. The film won all of its nine Oscar nominations, a record at that point in time, and a special Oscar for co-star Maurice Chevalier.

The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his widow told Life Magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot. To this day Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism, romance, and tragedy of the Kennedy years.

Loewe retired to Palm Springs, California while Lerner went through a series of unsuccessful musicals with such composers as André Previn (Coco), John Barry (Lolita, My Love), Leonard Bernstein (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), Burton Lane (Carmelina) and Charles Strouse (Dance a Little Closer, based on the film, Idiot's Delight, nicknamed Close A Little Faster by Broadway wags because it closed on opening night). Most biographers blame Lerner's professional decline on the lack of not only a strong composer but a strong director whom Lerner could collaborate with, as Neil Simon did with Mike Nichols or Stephen Sondheim did with Harold Prince (Moss Hart, who had directed My Fair Lady, died shortly after Camelot opened). In 1965 Lerner collaborated again with Burton Lane on the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which was adapted for film in 1970. Lerner was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.

In 1973, Lerner coaxed Fritz Loewe out of retirement to augment the Gigi score for a musical stage adaptation. The following year they collaborated on a musical film version of The Little Prince, based on the classic children's tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This film was a critical and box office failure, but has become a cult favorite, with the soundtrack recording and the film itself back in print (on CD and DVD) after many years of being unavailable.

Lerner's autobiography The Street Where I Live (1978), was an account of three of his and Loewe's successful collaborations, My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot along with personal information. In the last year of his life he published The Musical Theatre: A Celebration, a well-reviewed history of the theatre replete with personal anecdotes and his trademark wit. A book of Lerner's lyrics entitled A Hymn To Him, edited by Benny Green, was published in 1987. 

At the time of Lerner's death, he had just begun to write lyrics for The Phantom of the Opera, and was replaced by Charles Hart. He had turned down an invitation to write the English-language lyrics for the musical version of Les Misérables. He also had been working with Gerard Kenny in London on a musical version of the classic film My Man Godfrey.

Today is also the birthday of my friend Ben in NYC. His grandfather was a Methodist minister, as was mine. And while my own father was a minister, both of Ben's parents are-- or were-- as I believe they've changed careers!

Image:pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/images/lerner_a_pic1.jpg

Text:wikipedia.com

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID ~ August 30, 1748 ~ December 29, 1825

Jacques-Louis David (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the ancien régime.

David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, that of Napoleon I. It was at this time that he developed his 'Empire style', notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting.

(Jacques-Louis David’s facial abnormalities were traditionally reported to be a consequence of a deep facial sword wound after a fencing incident. These left him with a noticeable asymmetry during facial expression and resulted in his difficulty in eating or speaking (he could not pronounce some consonants such as the letter r). A sword scar wound on the left side of his face is present in his self-portrait and sculptures and corresponds to some of the buccal branches of the facial nerve. An injury to this nerve and its branches are likely to have resulted in the difficulties with his left facial movement.)

Image & Text:wikipedia.com

Whenever I'm in Paris I like to view his monumental painting of Napoleon's coronation. I didn't have the opportunity two years ago last October since Debbie and I arrived from Venice on Saturday afternoon and departed for the States on Sunday morning.

10 Years ago ~ HEART ATTACK ~ August 29, 2004

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I suppose if you’re going to have a heart attack, I had mine at an optimal time. I recently read an article about the efficacy of angioplasty and of stents (man-made 'tubes' inserted into a natural passage/conduit in the body to prevent, or counteract, a disease-induced, localized flow constriction). Its conclusion was that preventative stents are of questionable value—that the gold standard for inserting stents needs to be within an hour of a severe heart attack. That qualification fit my scenario to a ‘T.’

Saturday August 28th, 2004 was the wedding of Dan Hutchings & Rachael Lu, musician friends (Dan then of the Schola Cantorum at St. Francis) in the Green Room of the War Memorial Veteran’s building next to the opera house. Dan sang Schubert and Rachael accompanied him on the piano.

Dennis and I went to the ceremony and reception in the same room and sat at the table with Tom Hart from Chanticleer days. He said I looked terrific.

Earlier that day, I had gone to William Stout Architectural Books near work and bought a huge folio of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the great 19th Century German architect. The book weighs about 80 pounds. I brought it home by taxi, but carried it upstairs and moved it around several times before settling on the floor in front of the Napoleon window in the dining room.

When I later suggested to my cardiologist, Sheryl Garrett, that this might have been the proximate cause of my heart attack the following morning, she agreed. She said it was the first time she had heard of a heart attack caused by a book! More common was somebody lifting a car engine.

On Sunday morning I woke up early, sopping wet. I frequently sweat a lot at night, but this was different. Dennis was still asleep. I decided to take a shower, which was probably not such a hot idea. Then Dennis got up and went down to the garden to read the paper, drink his coffee and have a smoke. I think I had some coffee. I’m sure I had already made a pot for him. Still sweating after my shower, and starting to feel a sharp pain in my back, I called to Dennis in the garden and asked him to make some phone calls for me. To demonstrate my priorities, the first was to John Renke, my organist and choir director at St. Francis, to let him know that I wouldn’t sing at church that morning. Then I asked Dennis to call the advice nurse at Kaiser.

Dennis described my symptoms to the advice nurse. As we were talking to her, my left arm started to go numb. She immediately said to call 911. Dennis offered to drive me to Kaiser, but the nurse insisted he call 911, which of course, he did. Within minutes there were six or seven strapping firemen in the house, hooking me up to all kinds of things and injecting me with whatever is standard procedure. Then they strapped me into a chair and carried me down to their emergency van, which must have been only a few blocks away when they received the call. For some reason they went up Fair Oaks to 20th St and then to Dolores on the way to Kaiser on Geary. I think Dennis was with me in the emergency van.

When we got to Kaiser, I was immediately taken to the emergency room. It turns out that Kaiser’s Cardiac headquarters for Northern California is at that very location. Had I been taken to a different Kaiser facility, I would have been transferred to that one. Within half an hour or so, I had an angioplasty with two stents. One of my main cardiac arteries had been 99% blocked. It was a heart attack waiting to happen.

Most heart attacks occur on Monday mornings about 8:00 am. I guess people are apprehensive about going back to work. I suppose my parallel is that Sundays used to be work days for me, when the Schola Cantorum had regular services every Sunday (until we got fired).

Fortunately, Karl Friedrich Schinkel caused my attack to occur early on a Sunday morning, when the emergency vehicle was close by, there was very light traffic, and when I had the actual heart attack the very moment we were consulting the advice nurse!

Dr. Sheryl Garrett was the doctor on call in the emergency room that day. She was not my surgeon, but heard about my arrival. Dr. Garrett later told me she has had two most memorable experiences among the hundreds of cardiac patients she has treated during her seven years at Kaiser. The first was a seventy-eight year old woman who had cardiac arrest the very instant Dr. Garrett shook her hand. The patient survived, then years later had another heart attack, and was still alive when I heard about her story.

The second memorable experience was seeing Dennis in the lobby outside the emergency room. Dr. Garrett had not yet met me, but had heard of my circumstances. She surveyed the waiting room and noticed Dennis among the group of people there. Immediately she knew who he was. She said his great concern, fear and love was absolutely palpable.

Although I was initially surprised by my heart attack, I really shouldn’t have been. There is significant history of heart disease on both sides of my family. Dad had his first heart attack at thirty-nine when he tried to hold his breath while swimming under water the full length of a pool. Then he had another one a few years later. I remember visiting him in the Harrisburg Hospital when I was three or four years old.

Of course, his dramatic cardiac arrest was in 1977 when he was sixty-eight. That was when Dad collapsed after giving a tight three minute roast of the mayor at the auditorium of the Hershey Medical Center, and Helen screamed and followed Dad in the ambulance –and Mother was left behind because she was trying to stay out of the way of the care givers. Many people thought Helen was Mrs. Bell. Dad’s performance ended the show! Lastly Dad died of a heart attack the day he was supposed to be released from Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia on October 30, 1982, about seven weeks before his 74th birthday. He had been treated for a major stroke the previous June, and was going home to recuperate before a scheduled operation on his other carotid artery.

Dad’s favorite sister Alice died of heart disease in her late fifties. And Mother’s mother, Julia Trump Rich, died of heart failure about age sixty-five.

Recently, of course, was the unexpected death of my first cousin Roswell Brayton, Jr. As his sister Anne said: “He was the golden boy. Nobody expected him to die so young.” He was almost the same age as I when I had my attack – a few months after his 55th birthday. Rozzie was the genuine athlete in the family. He was the star pitcher on his Harvard baseball team and made the Harvard Sports Hall of Fame. I guess he was also a fanatic golfer, as were many others of my Mother’s family. He had a wooden box full of score cards from every golf game he had ever played (over a thousand). It was buried with him in his casket. And since his father had lived until his early eighties, Rozzie had every expectation that he would do likewise. Nevertheless, he evidently had already planned that detail of his funeral.

The irony was, he died doing cardio in the company gym in Woolrich. I suppose the hard decisions he had taken to make Woolrich competitive to survive in the new global economy took its toll. As President and CEO of the family company, he had had to let go almost 80% of the US workforce. I’m convinced it killed him.

I received word [in October 2008] from Dennis’ step-mom Evelyn that his step-sister Jackie’s husband had died of a heart attack. The shame was he wasn’t feeling well and went in for a check-up, but the hospital didn’t do any tests for heart condition and thought instead he was coming down with pneumonia. He went back to work and died a few days later at the farm co-op in Clarence, Iowa.

Dennis had been sick for years, and I had been preparing myself to be a caregiver to him. The amazing thing is I never anticipated that he would be such a marvelous caregiver to me. I’ll always be grateful that I survived to be there for him at his end.

###

Today is also the ninth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina! 

"I HAVE A DREAM" Speech ~ August 28, 1963

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march.

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites, among others, would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in human history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.

According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."

Some of Dr. King's words:

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"

"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."

"The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers as evidenced by their presence here today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We can not walk alone."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."

"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

At the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream", possibly prompted by Mahalia Jackson's cry, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" He had delivered a speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.

The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom."Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 (police) to over 300,000 (leaders of the march). About 80% of the marchers were African American and 20% white and other ethnic groups.

The march is widely credited as helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965).

Image & Text:wikipedia.com

My brother Sherry Bell was at the march before his senior year at Princeton.

For my birthdays two years in a row (before he took a middle year in France) when he was a Freshman and Sophomore and I was in fifth and sixth grade, Sherry gave me train tickets to spend a weekend with him at the university. I remember crossing the bridge at Trenton with the sign "Trenton Makes, the World Takes." Sherry would meet me at Princeton Junction. We saw Bill Bradley play basketball. I heard the Tiger Tones and Nassoons, and went to productions of the Triangle Club (foreshadowing my later involvement with Low Jinks at the Bohemian Club). I loved the University Chapel.

Sherry also took me to my first black Baptist services in Princeton. It was the first time I heard Gospel choirs. Sherry was very much concerned with Civil Rights and racial justice, and this was a few years before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ~ August 27, 1770 ~ November 14, 1831

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, and with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, one of the creators of German Idealism.

Hegel influenced writers of widely varying positions, including both his admirers (Bauer, Feuerbach, Marx, Bradley, Dewey, Sartre, Küng, Kojève, Žižek), and his detractors (Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Peirce, Russell). Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system", to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy.

In particular, he developed a concept of mind or spirit that manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and united, such as those between nature and freedom, and immanence and transcendence, without eliminating either pole or reducing it to the other. His influential conceptions are of speculative logic or "dialectic," "absolute idealism," "Spirit," negativity, sublation (Aufhebung in German), the "Master/Slave" dialectic, "ethical life," and the importance of history.

Image & Text:wikipedia.com

BATTLE of CRECY ~ August 26, 1346

The Battle of Crécy (occasionally called the Battle of Cressy in English) took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War. The combination of new weapons and tactics have caused many historians to consider this battle the beginning of the end of chivalry.

Crécy was a battle in which a much smaller English army of 12,000 to 16,000 (depending on source), commanded by Edward III of England and heavily outnumbered by Philip VI of France's force of 35,000 to 100,000 (depending on source), was victorious as a result of superior weaponry and tactics, demonstrating the importance of the modern military concept of fire power. The effectiveness of the Welsh longbow, used en masse, was proven against armoured knights, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day which held that archers would be ineffective and be butchered when the armoured units closed in.

In the battle, the French knights, protected by mail reinforced with plate, nearly exhausted by charging several miles into the fray (against their king's wishes) and having to walk through a quagmire of mud to charge up a shallow hill into English and Welsh arrow storms, were cut down. The result was that much of the French nobility died, perhaps even a third (estimates of the actual numbers in each army vary considerably, depending on the source).

Knights' armour had not yet evolved to the stage where longbows could not penetrate, and the knights' horses were barely protected at all. The storm of arrows killed or disabled the knights' mounts, and left the knights floundering about in the mud on foot beneath a withering fire.

Just as importantly, the hired Genoese crossbowmen who were at the forefront of the battle were not able to reach the defending English with their fire due to the rain slackening their crossbow strings. As the Genoese attempted to retreat, they were cut down by the French knights who considered the withdrawal to be cowardly. Therefore, the necessary support for the mounted knights was eradicated early on in the battle, mainly due to the French themselves.

The battle is seen by many historians as the beginning of the end of chivalry; during the course of the battle, many of the prisoners and wounded were killed. This was against the chivalric codes of warfare; and knights on horseback were no longer "undefeatable" by infantry.

Crécy may also have seen the first real use of cannon on the European battlefield, which were used only in small numbers by a few states during the 1340s. "Ribaldis", a type of cannon, were first mentioned in the English Privy Wardrobe accounts during preparations for the battle between 1345 and 1346, and they were perhaps employed against both the Genoese and the cavalry.

Similar cannon would appear also at the Siege of Calais in the same year, although it would not be until the 1380s that the "ribaudekin" was mounted on wheels.

The use of firearms at this battle is only mentioned in one contemporary account of the battle, that of Villani (d. 1348). Villani did travel abroad during much of the early 14th century, yet he had returned to his home in Florence at the time of the Battle of Crécy, so his information was likely second hand if not third or fourth hand. His account also conflicts with almost all of the other contemporary chronicles of this time on the events of the battle, specifically the use of firearms. In one of the later versions of his chronicle, Froissart does mention guns being used in the battle, but by that time firearms had become more common in warfare. His earlier versions fail to include any mention of firearms. So while firearms were perhaps employed, their possible effect on the battle should be viewed critically.

The political consequences of the battle were significant for Edward III especially, who had financed and supplied his expedition to Normandy with increasingly unpopular policies. The widespread use of purveyance and the arresting of ships to provide transport for his armies had left the King with potential sources of discontent in his kingdom. Likewise, the bold and unprecedented move to expand compulsory service, usually only required for defence of the coasts, to supply overseas service in France proved to be deeply unpopular with many of his subjects. However, the successes of the campaign did much to mute opposition when English Parliament was called at 11 – 20 September 1346.

English casualties were light but there were thousands of French dead, among them the counts of Flanders, Alençon, and Blois, Rudolph, Duke of Lorraine, and King John of Bohemia, a French ally. Charles IV from the House of Luxembourg (future Holy Roman Emperor) lost his father John of Bohemia and many of his best knights, with Charles himself escaping wounded from the field.

Image & Text:wikipedia.com

Returning from "Inglourious Basterds" at the Castro Theater three years ago last night, I learned the sad news that Senator Edward Kennedy had died at the age of 77. At least he lived far longer than any of his brothers (and four years more than my Dad or his father). I recall his eloquent eulogy at RFK's funeral in Saint Patrick's Cathedral NYC forty-four years ago! What promise-- destroyed two years later just before the first moon landing. If not a president... a great senator.

50th Anniversary PARIS Liberated! August 25, 1944

The Liberation of Paris (also known as Battle for Paris) took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on 25 August 1944, and is accounted as the last battle in the Campaign for Normandy and the transitional conclusion of the Allied invasion breakout in Operation Overlord into a broad-fronted general offensive. The capital region of France had been administered by Nazi Germany since the Second Compiègne armistice in June 1940 when Germany occupied the north and west of France and when the Vichy regime was created in city of Vichy in central France.

The liberation started with an uprising by the French Resistance against the German Paris garrison. On 24 August, the French Forces of the Interior (Forces françaises de l'intérieur, FFI) received backup from the Free French Army of Liberation and from the United States' 4th Infantry Division.

This battle marked the end of Operation Overlord, the liberation of France by the Allies, the restoration of the French Republic and the exile of the Vichy government to Sigmaringen in Germany.

Despite repeated orders from Adolf Hitler that the French capital "must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris" to be accomplished by bombing it and blowing up its bridges, German General Dietrich von Choltitz, the commander of the Paris garrison and military governor of Paris, surrendered on 25 August at the Hôtel Meurice, the newly established headquarters of General Leclerc. Von Choltitz was kept prisoner until April 1947. In his memoir ... Brennt Paris? ("Is Paris Burning?"), first published in 1950, von Choltitz describes himself as the saviour of Paris.

There is a controversy about von Choltitz's actual role during the battle, since he is regarded in very different ways in France and Germany. In Germany, he is regarded as a humanist and a hero who saved Paris from urban warfare and destruction. In 1964, Dietrich von Choltitz explained in an interview taped from his Baden Baden home, why he had refused to obey Hitler: "If for the first time I had disobeyed, it was because I knew that Hitler was insane" ("Si pour la première fois j'ai désobéi, c'est parce que je savais qu'Hitler était fou")".

According to a 2004 interview his son Timo gave to the French public channel France 2, von Choltitz disobeyed Hitler and personally allowed the Allies to take the city back safely and rapidly, preventing the French Resistance from engaging in urban warfare that would have destroyed parts of Paris. He knew the war was lost and decided alone to save the capital.

The liberation of Paris was one of the few miracles of World War II. It is startling to think how close Paris was to total destruction!

Image & text:wikipedia.com